The "Link Airfare" feature helps you manage and update airfare pricing within your system, though it relies on a slightly different approach than other linked services. Instead of dynamically retrieving rates from airlines, it allows your contract and product team to upload static airfare rates obtained from various wholesalers or retailers.

Here's a breakdown:

Uploading Static Rates:

Your contract and product team uses this feature to upload and link airfare rates provided by different sources. These rates might be negotiated fares from wholesalers, special deals from consolidators, or even retail prices available to the public. Since airlines frequently change their pricing, these uploaded rates provide a snapshot of costs at a specific time.

Static vs. Dynamic:

It's important to understand that these are static rates, not dynamic rates directly pulled from airlines. This means the prices are fixed at the time of upload and won't automatically adjust with airline price fluctuations.

Using Linked Airfares:

Once the airfare rates are uploaded and linked within the system, they become available for:

• Quoting: Quickly generate quotes for products, packages, or bookings that include air travel, using the uploaded airfare rates.

• Pricing Products and Packages: Include airfare costs in your product and package pricing, ensuring that your offerings reflect current market rates.

• Booking Management: Accurately track and manage airfare costs within your bookings.

Filtering for Efficiency:

To simplify the process of linking and managing airfares, the system offers helpful filters:

• Location: Filter airfare options based on departure and arrival cities or airports.

• Airfare Name: Search for specific airfare options using keywords, airline names, or flight numbers.

• Suppliers: Filter airfare options based on the wholesaler or retailer providing the rate.

• Periods: Filter airfare options based on travel dates or validity periods, ensuring you use rates that are relevant to the booking timeframe.

Benefits:

• Simplified Airfare Management: Provides a centralized system for managing airfare rates from various sources.

• Accurate Quoting: Allows you to generate quotes with confidence, knowing the airfare costs are up-to-date (at the time of upload).

• Efficiency: Streamlines the process of including airfare in your pricing.

• Flexibility: Accommodates different airfare pricing sources and structures.

Important Considerations:

• Manual Updates: Since the rates are static, your team needs to regularly update the uploaded airfares to reflect market changes.

• Airline Rate Fluctuations: Be aware that the actual airline prices might differ from the uploaded static rates, especially if there's a significant time gap between upload and booking.

By effectively utilizing the "Link Airfare" feature and its filtering capabilities, you can simplify airfare pricing management within your system and provide your clients with clear and accurate quotes, even if the rates are not dynamically updated.